Revisit some of our many stories about Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and the ten-day period of prayer and repentance that culminates with the fast of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
“We are igniting our lives as humans,” says Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, “using the Jewish toolbox to make what we inherited work for today.” Rabbi Lau-Lavie leads New York City’s Lab/Shul in preparations for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. More
"T’Shuvah is repentance, return, and new response. T’Shuvah is change," explains Rabbi Mark Borovitz of Beit T’Shuvah, the House of Return, in Los Angeles and author of the memoir The Holy Thief. "T’Shuvah says that change is possible, and change is mandatory." More
“The richness of the melodies, the music—it leaves you with an indelible imprint” during the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, says Rabbi Joshua Maroof. More
"One day a year we make a journey in the company of the whole community of Israel—all of us together, each of us alone."
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The blast of the shofar during the High Holy Days, says Rabbi Irwin Tanenbaum, "sends a shiver. We can be better than we are." More
Rabbi Irwin Kula of the National Center for Jewish Learning and Leadership says Yom Kippur and the High Holidays are about life, not death. The paradox, he says, is that "one of the great ways to focus ourselves on life is to think about death." More
Read new translations of three psalms that are part of the liturgy of the Jewish High Holy Days. More
In the words of a new translation of Psalm 27, the psalm most associated with the Jewish High Holidays, "Your face, God, is what I constantly search for." More
Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, says everything having to do with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is designed "to help us make teshuva, return to that deepest path that we know we want to be on." More
Read more of the Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly September 8, 2009 interview about the meaning of the Jewish High Holidays with Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership in New York City: This period … More
Read more from the interview about the Jewish High Holidays with Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz, president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College: Sin is central to the holiday of Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is literally the Day of Atonement, and so to … More
Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz, president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia, explains the Jewish High Holiday concepts of sin, repentance, and forgiveness. More
by Ansley Roan Whether they are Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist or Reform, whether they gather on a California beach or in a New York City synagogue, Jews share at least one common element at their Rosh Hashanah observances: the shofar. “It’s … More
Around the world, there are hundreds of classes to which children come to learn how shofars are made. We joined a group in Brooklyn, New York at a class called the Shofar Factory. More
Try Jewish cooking authority Joan Nathan's recipes for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur from JOAN NATHAN'S JEWISH HOLIDAY COOKBOOK (Schocken Books, 2004).
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We talk about the Jewish High Holidays with a hazzan, also known as a cantor, who leads a congregation in sung prayer. More
We talk with Rabbi Alan Lew of Congregation Beth Shalom in San Francisco, who has written about the High Holidays in his new book This is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared. More
"Repentance, prayer, and charity are the hallmark[s] of this season," says Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, "We search our souls and then we pour out our souls to God, saying, 'God help us, give us the strength to be the kind of people that we want to be.'" More
"Rather than to try to change God, prayer should change us, should make us better human beings. That is the ultimate purpose of prayer," says Cantor Abraham Lubin of Congregation Beth El in Bethesda, Maryland. We spoke with him as he prepared for the high holidays. More
We spoke with Rabbis Deborah Wechsler and Robert Tobin, both of Chizuk Amuno congregation in Baltimore, Maryland, about the High Holidays and their preparation for them. More
